NOBEL laureate Brian Schmidt says he will place a $10,000 bet on the table after senior business figure Maurice Newman yesterday challenged scientific predictions that global temperatures are warming.

Writing in The Australian today, Professor Schmidt, who won the 2011 Nobel prize for physics, says: "Despite myself also not being a climate scientist, I do have considerable knowledge of the science at hand.

"I would be delighted to take him up on his implicit wager (and bet) in 20 years' time the Earth will be warmer."

William Kininmonth, former head of the National Climate Centre and a consultant to the World Meteorological Organisation:

BY big-noting himself with a lazy 10 grand, Brian Schmidt is bringing science into disrepute ("I'm ready to bet it'll be warmer in 2033", 16/1).

Betting on the continuation of a 300-year warming trend since the Little Ice Age is akin to betting on a favourite in the Melbourne Cup. Just as favourites do not win every race, so too all past warming trends have come to an end. Will the current trend cease before 2033 or after, or has it already ceased?

In stating that science is "about probabilities, not certainty" Schmidt casually disregards the fundamental building blocks of science. It is only when one does not understand the interaction between fundamental processes that one resorts to probabilities, or rudimentary computer models.

Scientists do a disservice to the community when they enter the realm of betting rather than admitting the required prediction is beyond current knowledge.

Professor Bob Carter:

BRIAN Schmidt alleges that the so-called extra heat that he believes is generated by human carbon dioxide emissions is present in the oceans. Perhaps he would like to explain why the first globally accurate network of measurement buoys (Argo) records no significant increase in ocean heat since its deployment in 2003.

Geologist Dr Marc Hendrickx:

BRIAN Schmidt would be aware that the real debate is not about whether it will warm, but the amount of warming, and its effect. Based on the IPCC's current report, the range for future warming based on estimates of the climate's sensitivity to CO2 is quite broad and implies anything from inconvenience to catastrophe.

Kevin Begaud (who may be a Past President of Warringah Council)

WHAT a joy it is to at last see, in a major newspaper, the beginnings of a scientific debate on climate change. Brian Schmidt may well be right and Maurice Newman ("Mother nature suggests the party's over for IPCC", 15/1) wrong in 2033, but the central issue is whether the alarmist and grossly exaggerated computer projections of IPCC and socialist government-funded scientists can be corroborated by scientific observations, which since 1998 has shown them to be wildly inaccurate.

Recent scientific papers and recorded data call into question alarmism over sensitivity to a doubling of CO2, the influence of water vapour, of ocean warming, sea level rises, polar ice loss, extreme weather claims, the natural effects of the Pacific and Atlantic oscillation systems, solar effects and so on; all of which are excluded under the IPCC charter.

Clive Huxtable, Beaconsfield, WA wrote:

It's our children and their children who will have to pay the price if we have got AGW wrong.

Whether we are "right" or "wrong", Clive, if we cut vital to life carbon dioxide emissions, we will stop the "greening of the planet" and reduce plant life. That, in turn will reduce the plant's production of oxygen.

The main driving factor of the oxygen cycle is photosynthesis, which is responsible for the modern Earth's atmosphere and life on earth

You are right. Life on Earth needs Oxygen. Plants need CO2. Plants do not distinguish between man's CO2 emissions and natural Co2 emissions. "It's our children and their children who will have to pay the price if we have got AGW wrong."

Comments

Perhaps Schmidt can finance his bet by providing one lousy empirical fact that links mankind's burning of natures fossil fuels to the 20th century warming, instead of seeing a natural warming trend as a sign, portent and augurie of humanities sins in exactly the same fashion as our superstitious pre-Enlightenment ancestors did.

Sir Henry Fraser has an impressive CV.
Barbados' newest knight, retired university professor, Dr. Henry Fraser, received the Accolade of Knight of St. Andrew, in the 2014 Independence Day Hours. Sir Henry Fraser was named as a result of The Knighthood of St. Andrew being bestowed on him for his outstanding contribution to the medical profession and representation of Barbadian culture, especially in the area of its architectural history.Sir Henry, a medical practitioner by profession, has worked for many years as a lecturer in medicine at the University of the West Indies and now serves as an Independent Senator in the Barbados Parliament where he has gained an outstanding reputation for his work on the historic treasures of Barbados.

He has received a plethora of other awards, including the UWI’s Pelican Award, Paul Harris Fellow of Rotary International and the Gold Crown of Merit (GCM) in the Barbados Honours of 1992.